


Love, Love, Love

by GallicGalaxy



Series: Little Whispers (Post-asylum Oneshots) [1]
Category: Outlast (Video Games)
Genre: I forget Waylon is married sometimes, M/M, Mentioned Lisa Park, Mild Sexual Content, Post-Asylum AU, Songfic, When will Galaxy write a fic that doesn't involve Waylon Park crying
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-09-06
Updated: 2015-09-06
Packaged: 2018-04-19 09:55:51
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,392
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4741991
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/GallicGalaxy/pseuds/GallicGalaxy
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Because I didn't have enough sad Eddie/Waylon music or fics<br/>Songfic for Love Love Love - Of Monsters and Men</p>
            </blockquote>





	Love, Love, Love

**Author's Note:**

> Whoa look at me I'm a lean mean writing machine, two fics in two days better break out the drinks and make it a party  
> This time it's an actual songfic even though music inspires 99.9% of my writing. I forgot that Love Love Love was a song that exists, so I had to listen to it again and cry. I don't usually think of myself as a person who cries easily, but damn it I swear I've never listened to that song without tearing up  
> So naturally I wrote a songfic for it. Fun fact about this fic: It was written from the middle. Basically I had just copied over all the lyrics to the song when the semi-line 'a married man with a wedding ring made from a fragile heartline' popped into my head and I really, really liked it. I wrote that entire section first, then went all the way back to the beginning. There's a lot going on in this fic and I'm gonna pretend like I did it all on purpose from the beginning  
> There is some sex of debatable explicity (??? that's not a word Galaxy) in here, not really overtly explicit but still pretty clearly sex. Post-Asylum AU but they're still in a sanitarium, just a legitimate one.  
> YOU thought that last one was painful to read, this one was painful to WRITE

_Well, maybe I am a crook_

_For stealing your heart away_

 

A glance, stolen by Waylon. Property he should never have taken. Something he should have left where it belonged. He was just the pickpocket of bashful looks this evening, while waiting tepidly in the commons for someone who he didn't actually want or expect to arrive. As much as he loved Miles, his best friend also happened to be quite flaky.

Understandably. Trauma and addiction, and the crushing daily reality that he was here because he was sick and fucked up, were notorious plan-ruiners.

Waylon kept his eyes locked on his phone. Miles wouldn't respond to his messages; he was probably lying on the floor of his room in a transparent haze, a supreme lack of control over his own muscles overriding the notion that he should check his phone or even that his phone existed.

 

_Yeah, maybe I am a crook_

_For not caring for it_

 

Waylon was just avoiding looking at Eddie again. He hadn't even meant to catch his eye in the first place.

Eddie was magnetized to Waylon. It may have been because Waylon was the only familiar thing to him that was still alive. And Eddie had felt so hated, so very hated. But everyone did. That was what it was all about. He had to learn that he wasn't unique in his feelings, he had to find out how to socialize again along with everyone else.

But it was not likely because of that. It may have been at first, but it no longer was. Now it was undoubtedly something else. Perhaps it was an evolution of his loneliness, or perhaps it was something he'd felt since he first saw Waylon but had never known how to express.

 

_Yeah, maybe I'm a bad, bad, bad,_

_Bad person_

_Well baby, I know_

 

And the way Eddie was lurking in the shadows indicated that he knew. He was aware of what he had done. He was aware of the fact that he had hurt Waylon and that Waylon was a afraid of him. Eddie was a painful, violent memory, a constant reminder of his traumatic experiences, and at least some part of his questionably numb heart was aware of it.

Eddie loved him. He lingered in Waylon's shadow, and gave him tentative, adoring looks. He spoke to him only softly, as though he was afraid his words would cause Waylon physical harm. He wanted Waylon, but Waylon was frightened by him. He was well aware of the fact that Eddie was still unstable and still violent. He didn't want to be that close to Eddie, because his face was a mask of pain and fear, of things he could never forget. It was impossible for Waylon to ever trust him all the way. And that wasn't what Eddie wanted.

 

_And these fingertips_

_Will never run through your skin_

 

Waylon was pretending like he was doing something important. But all he was doing was losing interest.

He could feel Eddie looking at him, but not invasively, not hungrily, not like he was threatening to pounce on Waylon. He was just trying to get his glance back. That was all he wanted.

Waylon started to tremble a little, though he didn't know why. Eddie had accomplished his mission, he'd made Waylon thinking about him and how much he could tell that Eddie loved him. If he hadn't loved Waylon, he would have given up. Why was it Waylon, out of all the people he could have fallen in love with? Why not someone else, someone he hadn't tormented? Someone who could give him love in return instead of just insecure fear?

 

_And those bright blue eyes_

_Can only meet mine_

_Across a room_

_Filled with people that are less important than you._

 

Waylon finally returned Eddie's glance. He met with those pale, ice-coated eyes, so heavily laced with aching love and bright uncertainty. Eddie seemed to brighten, what was taken from him finally back in his grasp, and smiled at Waylon.

The worst thing about it was that Eddie was so timid, so uncharacteristically gentle. It was just glances, just sweet little words, friendly greetings. There was so bafflingly little aggression in the nature of his advances that it was almost heartbreaking. Sometimes it made Waylon wish it didn't hurt.

Maybe it could go away. Maybe the pain and the agonizing fear could slowly but surely be chipped away. or just detached from Eddie, disconnected from who he was now.

But that was the kind of thinking that would get them both into trouble. Maybes, what ifs, chances that were bound to fail. All that was left were the absolutes.

Take, for example, that Waylon was a married man.

 

_All cause you love, love, love_

_When you know I can't love you,_

_Love love love_

_When you know I can't love you,_

_Love love love_

_When you know I can't love you..._

 

A married man with a wedding ring made from the fragile heartline of a weeping woman who lived far, far away. A woman who he was bound to by blood, by the equally as fragile heartlines of the two children she had borne. And for some reason, yet, he was still here, in this big old building, made not of the tender thread of heartline which takes years to sew, but of rickety old memories that creaked all night and cast inconsistent shadows in the moonlight.

And somewhere in a modest little home was a woman and two children who were wondering why their father wasn't home. The thought made a stone form in Waylon's throat that he couldn't seem to clear away. Maybe staying here would delay the inevitable, make his family just that much safer, or something.

The Mona Lisa. A painting who never quite frowned. An intangible piece of history that sat far away with her arms crossed. She was nothing but an expectation.

 

_So I think it's best_

_We both forget_

_Before we dwell on it_

 

Waylon slowly lowered his eyes and turned his head away, swallowing hard. He tucked his phone back into his pocket and sighed just a little.

_“Are you quite alright?”_ Eddie asked, in a haunted voice. Waylon could hear him approach, and his heart sped up, his veins tingling at this sudden change in pace, carrying scentless, weightless fear over something that had happened a long time ago.

“No.” Waylon answered at last, staring ahead at everything and nothing like a deer caught in a car's headlights, facing its death with a perfect lack of emotion. Eddie paused just behind Waylon, leaning back and keeping himself out of that sacred spot right by Waylon's side. 

“Is there anything I can do to help?” Eddie rasped, very quietly, almost like he didn't really want Waylon to hear him. It was the voice of a man who knew that there was nothing he could do to help. The voice of a man who was helpless.

“Sure.”

 

_The way you held me so tight, all through the night,_

_'Til it was near morning..._

 

And what came next was a series of blind choices that Waylon made without rhyme or reason, smothered in a heavy layer of cloying pity. Somehow he ended up in Eddie's room, on Eddie's bed, in Eddie's arms. And somehow he ceased to care. He let Eddie hold him close, and he just relaxed in Eddie's big arms, ragdolling against the thick wall of his chest. A cradle, a beautiful place to stay, to watch the stars outside the window from.

And Waylon felt Eddie's mouth grace his neck, his powerful hands grace the perfect little trail made by his spine. He finally made no move to resist; Waylon smiled at the way Eddie smiled so giddily when he kissed him. He got to know all the little things about Eddie he'd never bothered to store in his brain, like Eddie's tiny, adorable little lisp, which exaggerated itself more and more as he got excited. 

Then Eddie lifted him up and rolled him over, burying Waylon in the clean white sheets. Waylon smiled and filled his lungs with air that tasted like Eddie's ardor. Oh, how much he would savor it, how little he expected to taste Eddie's tongue and enjoy it, to grasp desperately at his sleek, dark hair, take in handfuls of glossy midnight.

They played with each other, in an almost childlike way. Waylon kissed Eddie on the nose as his arms hung around Eddie's stout shoulders, and stared into his suddenly beautiful eyes. He let Eddie undress him, and run those magnificently large hands over his bare skin.

And as Waylon unraveled himself before Eddie, he felt Eddie start to tremble. Eddie, who had been so smooth and so forward the whole time, was shaking, and nervous.

Waylon told him it was okay. He told him not to be frightened, that they would both be fine. Eddie slowly brought them to the point where they could be together, like puzzle pieces falling into place, pushing and shifting until a little gasp told Eddie that he was getting it right.

Waylon let Eddie take him, in a way he had never even felt before, but which he found strangely pleasurable. There was a warmth in his chest that felt more like an emotion than a side effect of the physical sensation. Maybe it was love, maybe it was passion, maybe it was excitement or just arousal. But he let it happen. He let it all happen. He wanted Eddie to hold him and never let him go, and to just dissolve into the enormousness of his body, be part of his warmth.

Eddie filled him up. Waylon broke first, shattering quickly and completely, surrounded by the endless whiteness of a sanitarium bed around him and Eddie above him. Eddie watched him fall apart, biting his lip at its beauty. He pulled Waylon as close to him as possible, to breathe him in while he ushered himself to a climax.

And he kept Waylon there. They were together, opening the blinds and watching the stars from Eddie's bed, until the sky started to lighten and Waylon fell asleep against Eddie's heartbeat.

 

_'Cause you love, love, love_

_When you know I can't love you,_

_Love love love_

_When you know I can't love you,_

_Love love love_

_When you know I can't love you..._

 

And when he woke up he realized that he'd left his wedding ring on the whole time. But he was far more afraid of the fact that no semblance of regret had hit him until then. He was afraid of the fact that he had not been afraid, when he felt like he should have. His first breath of the morning was taken with Eddie's arm across his lungs, Eddie's face nestled against Waylon's neck, searching for the comfort of his pulse.

When Waylon jerked awake, he felt Eddie stir a little and murmur in his sleep, looking more content with life than Waylon had ever seen him. But beneath his own ribcage was a swelling feeling he could not name until it jammed itself against his lungs and made him start breathing raggedly, and it burst forth from his eyes. He was crying.

Eddie blinked his eyes open and grunted softly, his blue eyes widening as he noticed that Waylon was crying profusely. “Darling?” He murmured, reaching over and stroking Waylon's cheek.

Waylon threw a hand over half of his face, crying disgustingly. He sat up abruptly, pulling away from Eddie. 

“What's wrong?”

Waylon couldn't think of an answer. He just put his other hand on his face and let his stupid guilty tears cover his stupid guilty hands. All he could choke from his stiff throat was, “I have to go.”

And then he pushed Eddie off of him and ran away. He hadn't slept in only his underwear for years, but he put on his clothes as quickly as possible and just left. He was crying the whole time like an idiot who'd made a mistake, who was exceptionally afraid of absolutely nothing.

He didn't even make it all the way back to his room. He collapsed somewhere in the long hallway and put his back to the wall, and his knees to his face, and cried and cried and cried.

 

_All cause you love, love, love_

_When you know I can't love you,_

_Love love love_

_When you know I can't love you,_

_Love love love_

_When you know I can't love you..._

 

In a place where someone crying miserably in the middle of of a hallway wasn't even a strange thing. He heard footsteps approach him, and a raspy, shaky voice said,  _“Hey, Waylon, what's going on? I was waiting for you in the commons last night and you never showed up. That's not like you, man.”_ Waylon just sobbed and muttered,  _“I have to go.”_

He had to go. Maybe home. Maybe just anywhere. He was afraid that he wasn't afraid. He was afraid that he'd let Eddie have too much of him. He knew Eddie loved him and he couldn't love Eddie back, or maybe he could, and that thought was also frightening. He couldn't love Eddie, he told himself. And he was a bad person, for leading Eddie on like that. He had thought there was something there, in that tight space between them. Love.

And Waylon was sure that somewhere in that mangled mess of “yes – more – please – keep going” he'd said “I love you, I love you”, but just in a moment, he told himself, it was the heat of the moment. He didn't mean it. 

Miles hauled Waylon to his feet and walked him back to his room, which was strange, as it was usually the other way around.

Waylon collapsed on his own bed and cried into his own pillow. Miles patted his back for a moment and then just sat in one of Waylon's chairs, calmly waiting for Waylon to re-compose himself. 

But even if Waylon loved Eddie, he couldn't. It would be so difficult, so difficult to love him. And Eddie would still love him. Eddie would keep loving him because he was a fool and because love existed only to hurt people. 

If only there were fewer absolutes.

 


End file.
